


To Hell With the Letdown

by VforVitaly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VforVitaly/pseuds/VforVitaly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek's been gone from Beacon Hills for 4 months, and Stiles has been doing a great job of not calling him, until one night, when he gets drunk at a party, and all he wants is to hear Derek's voice, to know that Derek's alright, wherever he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Hell With the Letdown

            It had been three months since Derek had left Beacon Hills, and things had more or less gone back to normal. Stiles wouldn’t say they were totally normal because he and Scott? They weren’t in the background anymore, but front and center. Scott was a lacrosse star, they were popular, or at least Scott was, and Stiles was more than happy to ride those coattails because, well, having friends and getting invited to parties was better than staying at home, alone, every weekend playing World of Warcraft and wondering what it might be like to have a social life.

            At the same time though, Stiles had never felt more alone in his life. Danny was with Ethan, Lydia was with Aiden, and Scott, Allison, and Isaac? They had this weird thing going on that Stiles couldn’t explain, and he wasn’t sure yet if he wanted Scott to explain it to him. A lot of the time, despite the fact that Stiles was surrounded by people, he was the odd one out, and thus, completely alone.

            Lydia threw a party – a huge party – for Aiden and Ethan’s birthday, and everyone was there, Stiles included, and as usual, everyone had had a fair amount to drink…including Stiles. Around 1 AM, he was starting to burn out, but Scott, his ride home, seeing as he couldn’t get drunk, was nowhere to be found so Stiles slipped into one of the guest bedrooms and closed to door.

            He sat down in the dark, resting his back against the wall. He took a few deep breaths, reaching for his phone to check the time, and he found himself thinking about Derek. No one had heard from Derek in almost four months, but a part of that was because they’d all agreed not to contact him. Derek had to go find himself, to figure out his own life, and now he was out doing that, but Stiles? Stiles just wanted to hear his voice, just to make sure that wherever he was, he was alright.

            Drunk, and unable to stop himself, Stiles made the call, pressing the phone to his ear with one hand, reaching up to run his other hand through his hair. He took a deep breath, trying to gauge whether or not Derek was going to answer. He tapped his foot impatiently as the phone rang two, three times, and then a click, and a voice on the other line.

            “Hello?” Derek’s voice was gravelly, laden with sleep, and it was only then that Stiles realized just how late it might be where he was. 1 AM was too late to be calling, but if he was on the east coast, it could be as late as 4 AM. Stiles debated hanging up right then – he’d heard Derek’s voice, he was alive, that’s why he’d called, right? “Stiles, what the hell? It’s late, what’s wrong?”

            Oh. Right. Derek knew Stiles number, he had it in his phone. Maybe he hadn’t called it in 4 months, but that didn’t mean that it would disappear from his caller ID. Even if Stiles did hang up, Derek would still know that he was the one who had made the call, and if Stiles hung up now, Derek might be left worrying that something was wrong in Beacon Hills when in reality, everything was painfully, agonizingly normal.

            “No, nothing’s wrong, I just…I…” Stiles throat felt thick, and hearing Derek’s voice again, it wasn’t like he thought it’d be. He thought that he would hear Derek’s voice, know that he was okay, hang up, and go back to the party, go back about his business, but it wasn’t like that. He heard Derek’s voice, and now he never wanted to hang up again.

            It was the first time since Derek had left that Stiles allowed himself to realize the truth. He missed Derek Hale. He couldn’t say it, not out loud, but he missed Derek. A lot.

            “Stiles, are you okay?” Derek sat up, rubbing his eyes, and got out of bed, not wanting to wake Cora. They were sharing a motel room somewhere outside of Chicago. He went out into the hallway, sitting down against a wall, mirroring Stiles’ position without knowing it – after all, they couldn’t see each other.

            “Yeah, I am, it’s…I just wanted to make sure that you were okay,” Stiles said, his voice soft. “No one’s heard from you in a long time, and I know we said that’s the way it should be, but with everything that we both know is out there, I just wanted to make sure you were hanging in there.”

            “Stiles, I’m fine,” Derek stated. He let out a sigh, resting the back of his head against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut. Truth be told, he hadn’t been planning on answering the phone. He had been planning on let it go to a voicemail that he would never check, but it was Stiles, and there was something about that kid that he just had trouble saying ‘no’ to, and that included hanging up without speaking to him.

            “Okay, good, that’s…that’s good.” Stiles gulped. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, but he desperately wanted to keep Derek on the line, he wanted to keep talking to him, to keep hearing the voice that he missed so much. “Scott…Scott’s good,” he stated. “And Allison, and Isaac, and Lydia, and everyone, they’re…they’re all good.”

            “So no supernatural dark forces trying to ruin the town?” Derek asked, his voice still heavy with the sleep Stiles had woken him from.

            “No, everything’s…it’s weirdly normal here.” Stiles’ words were slurring together slightly, because the more he fell into the conversation, the less he was paying attention to making sure that he enunciated properly.

            “That’s good.” Derek felt like maybe that had something to do with him, that maybe, just maybe, everything was okay because he had left. He had been the negative factor, the catalyst for all of the death and destruction, and if him staying away could keep Isaac and Scott and Stiles safe, then he would stay away for the rest of his life.

            “Yeah, I guess so, it is.” It was, and Stiles knew that – and he’d rather have it be like this than the way that it was before, but at the same time, something was missing, and he wasn’t sure if it was werewolves and kanimas and druids, or if it was, well, just Derek.

            “Stiles, are – have you been drinking?” Derek asked finally. The younger man’s words were melting together just enough for Derek to pick up on the change in his speech pattern, and it was very, very early in the morning.

            “I’m at a party,” Stiles said for his answer. “It was the twin’s birthday at midnight, so everyone came together at Lydia’s and…yeah.” He felt that that would adequately explain his addled state, but that wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. He didn’t want to talk about the fact that he’d been drinking, or the fact that he felt alone, even though both of those things were true. “Derek, are…are you ever coming back?” he asked, trying to keep the hitch in his throat from showing through in his words.

            “I don’t know,” Derek admitted softly. He hadn’t decided if he was ever coming back. Sure, he’d thought about it – he thought about it every day. Beacon Hills was his home, but at the same time, everything was always going to shit when he was there, and he didn’t want to put those boys through that, not again.

            “Oh, okay.” Stiles gulped, trying not to let that get to him. He wanted Derek to come back, he couldn’t deny the pull he felt in his chest as they spoke. There was something there, and he didn’t know if Derek felt it, but if Derek needed to be staying away, if he needed to be finding himself, he didn’t need Stiles pressuring him to come home, and hell, Stiles didn’t have the confidence to let himself believe that asking Derek to come home would matter to the man.

            “Yeah, I uh…we haven’t really settled anywhere yet, but, you know…if everything’s going well in Beacon Hills, I don’t want to come back and ruin that.” Stiles wasn’t the only feeling this, this pull that could exist through a phone line over thousands of miles, and a part of him wished that Stiles had never called, because this was hard to do, talk to him and know he wasn’t going to see him, be with him, but the other half of him wanted the call to go on forever so he could keep hearing the younger man’s voice, keep pretending that they might, at some point, have some semblance of, well, something.

            “I…Derek, none of this was your fault, you know that, right?” Stiles sighed. “Everything that happened, we all had our parts in it, but whether you stay or whether you go, that doesn’t have any impact on whether or not Beacon Hills is safe. You’re not the bad guy, Derek.”

            Derek didn’t say anything. He sat there, letting Stiles’ words sink in. Coming from anyone else, he wouldn’t have believed them, he would have believed that what he was being told was just a manipulation of the truth to make him feel better, but Stiles had never cut him any slack, so why would he start doing so now? Stiles had been his harshest critic, and that had always made Derek want to go above and beyond to impress him, and even from across the country, that was still true.

            “Well I should get back to the party,” Stiles said, after Derek hadn’t said anything for awhile. He knew that no one would be missing him, but at the same time, he had to say something. Derek had either fallen asleep, or had nothing more to say to Stiles.

            “Alright, you have a good time, okay?” Derek got to his feet, making his way back to the door of the motel room, but not quite entering just yet. “Stiles?”

            “Yeah?”

            “I miss you.”

            It was hard for Derek to say those words. He wasn’t sure that he’d ever said those words to anyone in his entire life, that he’d ever even admitted to himself that he missed someone, but Stiles? Well, he couldn’t help but miss the wise cracking, incredibly intelligent, ballsy, young human.

            “I miss you too.”

            Stiles hung up the phone right after that, afraid that if he didn’t, he would start to cry on the phone with Derek, and that would be embarrassing.

            Derek climbed back into bed, setting his phone on the bedside table, closing his eyes, trying not to think about Stiles, back in Beacon Hills, living his life without him. Derek didn’t want to hold him back, but he also wasn’t sure he wanted to be without him.

            Stiles stood up, pocketed his phone and went back into the party, going to find Scott, because he wanted to go home. He didn’t know if Derek was ever coming back, but Stiles hoped that he would, and that maybe if he did, Stiles wouldn’t be so lonely anymore.


End file.
